Category: Technology
June 15, 2007
Not Attending ALA? Here's an Alternative...
This is posted many places but I want to be sure that no one misses it!
This is FREE and doesn't require you to leave the comfort of your home or use any gas!!!
Not able to attend ALA but still want to find out what's going on in cutting edge technology and social software!? Well check out the BIGWIG Social Software Showcase...
From their page:
The Social Software Showcase is an online unconference occurring on and during the time of ALA Annual 2007.
On this wiki, you will find eleven wonderful presentations on cutting edge technology and social software by librarians and leaders in the field. Regardless of where you are in the world, you will have the opportunity to discuss the presentations here in this space.
We will also be having a face to face roundtable discussion with some of our presenters at ALA Annual in Washington D.C. on Saturday, June 23rd, from 1:30-2:30 in the Renaissance Mayflower Cabinet Room. If you are in D.C. please come and join us.
This wiki will be a work in progress as we iron out a few things, including the embedding of the presentations. But we'll be ready and running before ALA! [end]
This is a revolutionary way of presenting information! Please do check it out.
The presenters include the VERY excellent:
Michael Casey - Library Crunch blog
Michael Porter, aka Library Man! - Library Man blog
Jessamyn West - Librarian.net blog -
Karen Schneider - Free Range Librarian blog
Her post on this.
AND MORE!
You can read another excellent post on this for some more information on the Information Wants to Be Free blog here
The Bigwig Social Software Showcase is here
Check it out! :-)
Happy Weekend!
Posted by Amy Kearns at 9:03 AM | Comments (0)
June 3, 2007
Back to the Future
Tomorrow those who attended the Mid-Atlantic Library Futures Conference will reconvene at the Princeton Public Library. We have had a chance to think a bit about all we took in and this should be a great opportunity for us to get together and talk about everything again. We will also brainstorm about what ideas affected us the most and try to discern some paths for NJ to take into the future! I'll be blogging more about that after the meeting.
The hand-outs and materials from the conference are now available. Take a look here.
Posted by Amy Kearns at 11:27 PM | Comments (0)
May 30, 2007
NJ Librarians, Facebook and 2.0
Are you wondering about 2.0 stuff? Do you use some but have questions? Do you want to use some?
Have you heard of/used/or wanted to use Facebook?
I recently joined Facebook and found that it is an excellent place to network and share with those who have similar interests.
To that end, I created a group on there called NEW JERSEY LIBRARIANS. We already have a nice group of people going and we would love to have more! Come on and join us. Facebook is now open to all to register and it's free.
If you have any questions please don't hesitate to contact me (kearns@patersonpl.org). Or, just join up and ask away in the group!
There are many interest groups and professional groups on there that you can join once you are a member of Facebook. There are also an incredible number of additional applications you can add to your Facebook account to make it more personal and more useful to you. For example, there is a calendar application; a video sharing app; a photo sharing app; a social timeline so you can see what you have done and when as far as organizations or groups you have been in; and so much more! I encourage you to jump on in - the water is fine and it's almost summer!
This is one great way to try something out, to play and to learn.
Hope to see you there!
Thanks, Amy Kearns
Posted by Amy Kearns at 10:43 PM | Comments (0)
May 11, 2007
15 Fantastic Freebies in 50 Minutes from Janie L. Hermann and Bob Keith
Posted on behalf of my good friend and fellow-blogger, Janie L. Hermann -
The slides for the presentation given at NJLA this year by Janie and Bob Keith are available archived at SlideShare. (PS SlideShare is really cool - check it out! - AJK).
Janie has also graciously made them available for quick and easy viewing here on the Library Garden blog! Enjoy!
Posted by Amy Kearns at 4:18 PM | Comments (0)
May 1, 2007
Helene Blowers: Adopt a Continuous Play Strategy!
Helene Blowers presented Core Competencies and Core Values in the Era of Library 2.0 and also Discovering Library 2.0 and has made the slides of these two NJLA Conference 2007 presentations available via a great sharing site called SlideShare.net.- You can access them through her site LibraryBytes which I highly recommend you keep your eyes on!
Read on for more on these two presentations ....
Having watched Helene Blowers' webinar Learning 2.0 : Make "play" your New Year's resolution on the SirsiDynixInstitute as a sort-of "assignment" for a committee I am on, I was very excited to realize that she would be presenting at NJLA!
That webinar introduced me to the Learning 2.0 program she created for the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County, which was a great success and has been duplicated (freely, as kindly made available for the taking by Ms. Blowers) in many places. In two seperate sessions at the conference, Ms. Blowers presented Core Competencies and Core Values in the Era of Library 2.0 and also Discovering Library 2.0.
It sounds to me like Helene Blowers has a fantastic job: Technology Director! And I am sure that working for or with her must be a lot of fun - afterall this is the woman who says,
"...librarians really do need to adopt a “continuous play strategy” in order to keep their skills and knowledge fresh."
CORE COMPETENCIES, CORE VALUES IN THE ERA OF LIBRARY 2.0
I think the important "take-aways" here are:
- A big change, or "technology wave," has already occurred - it's happened and now we need to provide staff with some development programs to give them the ability to cope
- This staff development must be a continuous process since new employees come in
- Start with the basics and build from there, i.e., using e-mail, the intranet, printing, saving, etc.
- Make the training system-wide so everyone knows this is a really important initiative with support from the "higher-ups;" it is a priority
- If you put technology in, you should "build-in" a component for getting staff comfortable with it
- Enable and empower employees by educating them in these ways!
Take a look at the slides to see the staff development system that was implemented (and very successful!) at PLCMC. Libraries have core competencies for many things, but we need one for technology too. Maybe you can adopt this model for your library.
Helene Blowers created a Learning 2.0 program for the staff at PLCMC with the goal of giving staff exposure to (not neccesarily mastery over) these new Web 2.0 tools.
The focus was EXPOSING staff to new tools; ENCOURAGING play; EMPOWERING individuals; EXPANDING their knowledge toolbox; and ELIMINATING fear.
She created a list of "23 Things" for the staff to do to give them exposure to tools such as blogging, photo-sharing, rss feeds, tagging, and maybe most importantly, how to become life-long learners so that they develop methods for keeping themselves "in the loop" as more new things come down the road at them.
The driving force behind this approach is to develop an effective way of motivating and guiding self-paced actitivies so you get the most bang for your training buck!
Take a look at the slides from this presentation and yes, you can "steal this program" and try it in your own library!
Posted by Amy Kearns at 11:17 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 30, 2007
"Let's Mambo at the Library" slides
Just in case you missed Bob Rynkiewicz's presention on “Website Content Management Systems” at the NJLA Conference, he posted the .ppt slides. They are now available on his website, http://www.joomlainlibrary.com/.
- JP (blog.bellepl.org)
Posted by porcaro at 12:58 PM | Comments (0)
April 27, 2007
Incorporating Tutorials Into Library Instruction
Eleonora Dubicki, Monmouth University
Annemarie Roscello, Bergen Community College
Ruth Hamann, Passaic County Community College
Eleonora opened the presentation with an overview of how library instruction has evolved. Lectures and handouts have been replaced by tutorials and hands-on practice. The types of tutorials vary in format from simple handouts such as a PDF on using WilsonWeb, to EBSCO’s Basic Searching Powerpoint slides, to interactive content seen in the University of Wisconsin’s CLUE multimedia tutorial, http://clue.library.wisc.edu/
Annemarie continued with showing a graphic illustrating the most effective learning (75%) takes place when students ‘practice doing.’ She also encouraged us to incorporate gaming into learning as this will engage the learner more. Additional challenging questions posed for the audience were, ‘what can we do to improve learning and retention without becoming programmers?’
Rounding out this presentation, Ruth introduced us to the ARCS Model of Model of Motivation for Instructional design by John Keller. We need to rely on and use the tools of instructional design: attention, relevance, confidence, and satisfaction as we design and create tutorials for our students.
A discussion of vendor-produced tutorials versus in-house production followed. The User Education Committee of ACRL/NJLA conducted a comprehensive review and evaluation of online database tutorials both vendor-created and library/librarian created. This valuable table was included as a handout. Some sites Ruth showed included the following:
Guess-the-Google, http://grant.robinson.name/projects/guess-the-google/guess-the-google.swf an image guess game.
An engaging tutorial on business research from Baruch College: http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/tutorials/zicklin/research/
posted by Chris Herz, Gloucester County College
Posted by at 10:36 AM | Comments (0)
More Captivating Your Audience
The session was a smorgasbord of how librarians are using Captivate in a variety of teaching settings. Four presentations were packed into the 50-minute allotted time. This User Education Committee sponsored-session gave a great value for your limited conference time! I opened the program with the following:
Creating Image Movies: More Than a Simple Slideshow
Chris Herz, Gloucester County College
Instead of PowerPoint use Captivate to create an image movie. To the resulting movie you may enhance the images with text captions, highlight boxes, and audio. The timeline feature in Captivate gives you director control of your movie.
Captivating First-Year Students: A Different Take on a Web Tour.
Leslie Murtha, Princeton University
Leslie gave an overview of the time it took from learning Captivate to its implementation in rolling out a polished, finished tutorial for first year students. While it is a tour of the library’s website, it also introduces students to its digital resources. Leslie's Captivate project can be viewed here:
http://library.princeton.edu/help/openhouse/
What Makes a Journal Scholarly?
Eileen Stec, Rutgers University
Eileen engaged the audience much as she does her students by inviting us to recall a sporting event and asking some questions leading us to the concept of the rule-enforcer, the referee. Eileen’s presentation can be viewed:
http://rci.rutgers.edu/~estec/presentations/njla2007.htm
A title Eileen recommended:
Conrad, R. & Donaldson, J. A. (2004). Engaging the online learner: Activities and resources for creative instruction. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Captivate Tutorials, We Can Build Them But What Are We Going to Do With Them?
William Vincenti and Nicole Cooke, Montclair University
Bill discussed their experience with getting familiar with Captivate and then his and Nicole’s sales pitch to their Reference Dept. and Administration to garner support for the project.
Both their tutorial, Finding Periodicals, and their presentation are available here: http://blake.montclair.edu/~vincentiw/Captivate/FindPeriodical/
posted by Chris Herz, Gloucester County College
Posted by at 9:32 AM | Comments (0)
April 24, 2007
"My favorite software on the planet."
Steve Garwood is a highly quotable man. He gave us Just Push Play! - an introduction to screencasting. Screencasting is the process of recording all of your on-screen activity: mouse movement, typing, clicking, etc., and adding voiceover narration to create a tutorial video. There are lots of applications of screencasting for libraries: show patrons how to renew a book, how to find an article in Ebsco, how to place an ILL - and on and on.
Camtasia is a piece of software that creates screencasts quickly and easily. Says Steve of Camtasia: "I LOVE Camtasia. it is my favorite software on the planet." It costs about $300 and is worth every penny for the ease of use. Steve did a live demo of Camtasia - it really is quite easy to use. Here are some random tips:
- Make your screencasts two minutes or less because "everyone has ADD" (another Steve quote).
- Sizer is a piece of software that opens all your windows at 800 x 600 pixels, which is a good size for creating screencasts that will look good on most computers.
- Any screencast you make is a video, so it's going to result in a very large file, which is going to eat up your server's bandwidth everytime someone watches it. So get free bandwidth: use YouTube or SplashCast. These services will give you a video with much smaller dimensions, but that's ok, because Camtasia has a "Zoom and Pan" feature which lets you just zoom in on the important part of the screen.
There are a couple of free screencasting programs - they will not be as easy-to-use or produce the high-quality product that Camtasia, does, but they're free. Try Wink or CamStudio.
Posted by Jessica Adler at 2:50 PM | Comments (0)
January 19, 2007
IT Section General Meeting - Gaming in Libraries
Please join us for the next Information Technologies Section General Meeting! Our demonstration topic is “Gaming in Libraries”.
When: Thursday, January 25, 2007 10am-12pm
Where: East Brunswick Public Library
2 Jean Walling Civic Center
East Brunswick, NJ 08816
(732) 390-6950
Directions: http://www.ebpl.org/About_The_Library/Directions.asp
What: Presentation of different games designed for various ages and interests. Systems and games presented will be Playstation2, Nintendo Wii, PC Internet Available, and DVD Boardgames. There will be time to test various games and systems as well.
Please R.S.V.P. to Lynn Schott at lschott@bergen.edu. Light refreshments will be served.
Looking forward to seeing you!
Posted by Jessica Adler at 3:03 PM | Comments (0)
June 23, 2006
NJLA Podcast Updated!
The NJLA podcast has some new entries - we recorded some of NJLA's new leaders at the New Leadership Orientation on June 20, 2006, at the Mt. Laurel Public Library.
Subscribe by right-clicking here (or on the "podcast | rss" link on the right) and copying/pasting the address into your podcatcher software. Your subscription will include the NJLA Conference podcasts, just in case you haven't heard them yet! Learn more about subscribing to the podcast.
If you are already a subscriber, your podcatcher should not attempt to download files you already have.
Posted by Jessica Adler at 11:46 AM | Comments (0)
June 15, 2006
Request for John Iliff Memorial Podcasts
Request for John Iliff Memorial Podcasts
My friend, fellow-blogger, and fellow NJLA IT Section Member-At-Large, Tyler, The Rock and Roll Librarian, has the following posted on his blog:
I received a very nice email from Karen Iliff today, widow of John Iliff. She thanked me for the efforts in trying to create a memorial podcast in her husband's name. She also asked if there was a way to put these on CD as a keepsake.
I would like to give everyone one last chance to visit the Iliff Podcast Memorial and leave a message before I burn the CD. I think it would be an incredible gift to provide Karen. The number is 206-339-7322.
I can admit that leaving a message felt a little weird because I felt like I had to say the right thing. Please, don't worry about it, it really doesn't matter. The point is to just take a moment and relive a fond memory with John. Remember, no matter how it sounds, John would be the first one to smile simply for the fact that you made a podcast!
For information on John, please see here.
Thank you.
Posted by at 5:53 PM | Comments (0)
June 9, 2006
Social Software and Libraries: June 2, 2006
N.B.: This is a guest entry by Marc Meola, whose e-mail address is: meolam [AT] tcnj [DOT] edu.
Edward Corrado (TCNJ) and Jim Robertson (NJIT) provided a useful
overview of some new technologies often referred to as social software or Library 2.0 at a program sponsored by the Technology Committee of the NJLA College and University Section/ ACRL-New Jersey Chapter on June 2.
Social Software is software that supports group interaction, such as
instant messaging, RSS, blogs, wikis, folksonomies, podcasting, photo sharing, and social bookmarking.
Some features that social software have in common are: they are
collaborative and leverage the widsom of crowds; there's a low barrie
to use and adoption; they are open and can be expanded linked or
"mashed"; they foster community; they're fun.
While some of the new software can be frivolous, some creative
librarians have come up with some interesting and innovative library
applications. Check out how users can tag their own items and write mini-reviews in the University of Pennsylvania's catalog, for example (see how the user named "jarson" tags the book Broadcasting It).
What are the implications for cognitive authority and user privacy? As
Bob Dylan says, the answers are blowin' in the wind and the times, they are a changin'! Check out more photos from this event in the CUS Social Software Set at NJLA's Flickr account!
--Marc Meola, meolam [AT] tcnj [DOT] edu
Posted by at 10:34 AM | Comments (0)
May 24, 2006
Recommended Reading: Some Homegrown Blogs
There must be something about Spring that makes people start new projects. Spring 2006 has seen the flowering of some excellent new library blogs here in New Jersey.
Library Garden is a collaborative blog full of the smart, thought- and action-provoking musings of such NJ library luminaries as Janie Hermann, Pete Bromberg, Marie Radford, Robert Lackie, and Kimberly Paone (and the number of contributors is growing!). Looking for a blog that covers it all, from time management to adult programming to chucking the rulebook? Look no further.
The M Word is all about marketing, and is written by Nancy Dowd of the State Library. In Nancy's introductory post, she writes, "I wanted to create a forum where we could all start to share our ideas and thoughts and help each other to find answers to problems we are encountering in journey to tell the public about our libraries." That sounds pretty essential to me. This blog is a wonderful supplement to blogs like Creating Passionate Users and Library Marketing: Thinking Outside The Book. It's brand new, and I can't wait to see where Nancy takes it!
Finally, I recommend Pop Goes The Library, which I co-author with Ocean County Library's Liz Burns, and Melissa Rabey of Cecil County (MD) Library System. Our blog's motto is "Better Libraries Through Pop Culture", and we write all about how libraries can leverage their popular materials collections into displays, programs, and events that will catch the public's eye and help transform the view of libraries as warehouses for books into community centers for everyone.
Here's an opportunity to practice some self-promotion skills: do you write a library-related blog? If so, don't be shy! Post a comment about it and enlighten your colleagues!
Posted by at 3:15 PM | Comments (5)
May 4, 2006
Print vs. Online Resources
Many thanks to Lisa Coats of the Burlington County Library System for her notes on this session!
At this session, there were three panelists who spoke on various aspects of the future of online reference resources.
David Lisa, Director of West Long Branch Public Library (http://www.wlbpl.org/), detailed the trends explaining that reference resources are increasingly being delivered electronically. He says that electronic versions of popular reference sources are often cheaper, easier to update, and can be more effectively accessed by customers. Remote access is also a plus since a patron can use these resources any time of day or night, not just during library hours. He referenced Q and A NJ (http://www.qandanj.org/), a virtual tool that brings reference services directly to the customer via a live chat session, and said that this sort of resource will prove to be more popular in the future.
Jennifer Druce of Camden County Library System (http://www.camden.lib.nj.us/) spoke to the cost effectiveness of electronic resources. She asked some very good questions about what users want and need, implying that we should be listening to them to help guide us in our reference choices. She pointed out that often distributors do not even offer the print versions of sources anymore (asking: are print directories dead??), but stresses that it is important to make sure the electronic versions are stable before tossing the print out. Also, does the library have room for all those volumes in print? Space considerations may move us toward electronic resources, as well.
Karen Parry of the East Brunswick Public Library (http://www.ebpl.org/) said that we need to say good bye to print! Our users are changing constantly, and since good service is in the eye of the customer, and that they are requesting the quick access that electronic sources can provide, we must abide. She says that even older patrons want to learn how to use these online sources. Parry suggests we also move off the desk and help customers in the stacks and at the computers, a theme that was echoed in several other sessions this NJLA: Off the desk, out into the library, and definitely on the computer!
Posted by at 12:39 PM | Comments (0)
April 25, 2006
Podcasting Made Simple
Wow. The IT Section's Podcasting Booth has turned into the sleeper hit of the conference. Over 50 people (including Nancy Pearl!) recorded podcasts today. This technology is so easy (and so fun) to use, and we're all hoping that the experience will have librarians from around the state fired up to record and share podcasts with their users.
Some ideas of how to use podcasts at your library include:
1) Ask your patrons to record reviews of your materials -- books, audiobooks, movies, CDs, and so on;
2) Record your storytimes for those families that can't make it to storytime;
3) Encourage teens to record book discussion group chats;
4) Encourage staff to record booktalks and other item recommendations;
5) Record Get To Know You interviews with employees from every department so that your users know who's working to keep the library such a great place to visit and use.
If you haven't podcasted yet, please come on down to the booth from 9-4 PM on Wednesday and give it a try!
Posted by at 7:55 PM | Comments (1)